- Ted Kopel: Back in 1997, a group of Washington heavyweights,
almost all of them neo-conservatives, formed an organization called the
Project for the New American Century. They did what former government officials
and politicians frequently do when they're out of power, they began formulating
a strategy, in this case, a foreign policy strategy, that might bring influence
to bear on the Administration then in power, headed by President Clinton.
Or failing that, on a new Administration that might someday come to power.
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- Transcript for *The Plan* - ABC Nightline, March 5, 2003
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL,
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- PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
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- If America doesn't lead, no one else will.
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- TED KOPPEL, ABC NEWS
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- (Off Camera) It has been called a secret blueprint for
US global domination.
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- America was being too timid and too weak and too unassertive
in the post-Cold War era.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Voice Over) A small group of people with a plan to remove
Saddam Hussein, long before George W. Bush was elected president.
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- PROFESSOR IAN LUSTICK,
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- UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
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- This group set an agenda and have made the President
feel that he has to live up to their definitions of manliness and fear
their definitions of failure.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Voice Over) And 9/11 provided the opportunity to set
it in motion.
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- One of the lessons of 9/11 is that you can't sit back
and wait to be hit.
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- graphics: The Plan
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Voice Over) Tonight, "The Plan", how one group
and its blueprint have brought us to the brink of war.
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- graphics: ABC NEWS: Nightline
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- ANNOUNCER
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- From ABC News, this is "Nightline." Reporting
from Washington, Ted Koppel.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) You can watch our story tonight on at least
two levels. One, the conspiracy theory, as in this excerpt from a Scottish
newspaper, the Glasgow "Sunday Herald". "A secret blueprint
for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were
planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure regime change even before
he took power in January 2001." And a similar, if slightly more hysterical
version from a Russian paper, the "Moscow Times". "Not since
Mein Kampf has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years
ahead of the blow."
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- TED KOPPEL (CONTINUED)
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- (Off Camera) Take away the somewhat hyperbolic references
to conspiracy, however, and you're left with a story that has the additional
advantage of being true. Back in 1997, a group of Washington heavyweights,
almost all of them neo-conservatives, formed an organization called the
Project for the New American Century. They did what former government officials
and politicians frequently do when they're out of power, they began formulating
a strategy, in this case, a foreign policy strategy, that might bring influence
to bear on the Administration then in power, headed by President Clinton.
Or failing that, on a new Administration that might someday come to power.
They were pushing for the elimination of Saddam Hussein. And proposing
the establishment of a strong US military presence in the Persian Gulf,
linked to a willingness to use force to protect vital American interests
in the Gulf. All of that might be of purely academic interest were it not
for the fact that among the men behind that campaign were such names as,
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. What was, back in 1997,
merely a theory, is now, in 2003, US policy. Hardly a conspiracy, the proposal
was out there for anyone to see. But certainly an interesting case study
of how columnists, commentators, and think-tank intellectuals can, with
time and the election of a sympathetic president, change the course of
American foreign policy. Here's more from Jackie Judd.
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- JACKIE JUDD, ABC NEWS
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- (Voice Over) Inside this building, behind this door,
is the brain trust that some suspect has led the US to the brink of war.
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- GARY SCHMITT,
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- PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
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- I think we've had a lot of influence because I think
we've set the terms of kind of a way to think about the world that, in
fact, has been picked up in some measure by this Administration.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) The Project for the New American Century
is a loose collection of mostly Republicans who came together out of frustration
in 1997.
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- I think the principles are those of Ronald Reagan. A
strong America. A morally-grounded foreign policy. As well as a foreign
policy that defended American security and American interests. And understanding
that American leadership was key to, not only world stability, but any
hope for spreading democracy and freedom around the world.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) With a Democrat in the White House, these
were people in the political wilderness. Then. . .
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- GARY SCHMITT
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- Included Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz,
Robert Zellic, John Bolton. We had a very good list of very senior and
very solid, obviously, former officials.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) Now, Cheney is Vice President. Rumsfeld,
Defense Secretary. Wolfowitz, his deputy. Of the 40 people who signed the
Project's letters, sent to then-president Clinton in 1998, ten are now
in the Bush Administration. Others, including Pentagon adviser Richard
Perle, have become leading advocates of war. That letter argued the case
for a comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam
and his regime.
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- We didn't finish the job in 1991 against Saddam. So,
our sense was that lots of lives were being lost, lots of instability was
being loosed upon the world. Lots of terrible things were really being
loosed upon the world because America was being too timid and too weak
and too unassertive in the post-Cold War era.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) The letter to Mr. Clinton, was in essence,
a preview of arguments that would have a more receptive audience five years
later. The Clinton White House did bomb Baghdad in 1998, after America's
containment policy of Saddam laid dormant, until a Tuesday morning in September.
A 76-page white paper, circulating for a year and arguing for an aggressive
US foreign policy, suddenly gained new relevance.
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- JACKIE JUDD (CONTINUED)
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- (Off Camera) In the blueprint, it says, the process of
transformation is likely to be a long one. Absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor. Was 9/11, your Pearl Harbor?
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- GARY SCHMITT
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- I think it was the country's Pearl Harbor. I think it
was the President's Pearl Harbor.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) The Project, agitating outside and now inside
the Administration, seized an opportunity after 9/11, which made war inevitable,
argues Professor Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania.
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- PROFESSOR IAN LUSTICK
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- Before 9/11, this group was in the position it is in
but could not win over the President to this extravagant image of what
foreign policy required. After 9/11, it was able to benefit from the gigantic
eruption of political capital, combined with the supply of military preponderance
in the hands of the President. And this small group, therefore, was able
to gain direct contact and even control, now, of the White House.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) According to the book "Bush At War,"
by Bob Woodward, it was only 30 hours after the 9/11 attacks, that Rumsfeld
asked the President, why shouldn't the US go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda?
At the Pentagon on September 13th, Wolfowitz, for the first time, alluded
to that broader goal.
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- PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
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- It will be a campaign, not a single action. And we're
gonna keep after these people and the people who support them until this
stops. It has to be treated that way.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Off Camera) What was the Project's influence in shaping
that thinking?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Well, we had been making these arguments for a few years
and we continued to make them.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Off Camera) How?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Magazine articles, faxed memoranda, longer reports.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Off Camera) To whom?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- To the whole world. We made it very public that we thought
that one consequence the President should draw from 9/11 is that it was
unacceptable to sit back and let, either terrorist groups or dictators
developing weapons of mass destruction, strike, first at us.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) Out of all this, a conspiracy theory blossomed,
especially in Europe. From Scotland to Russia to England. Writers who oppose
a war have written about a cabal of neo-conservatives pulling the strings
of the President. A cabal with visions of an imperialist America dominating
the world. Even Ian Lustick thinks the Project has acted in a conspiratorial
way.
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- PROFESSOR IAN LUSTICK
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- This group, what I call the tom-tom beaters, have set
an agenda and have made the President feel that he has to live up to their
definitions of manliness, their definitions of success and fear, their
definitions of failure.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Off Camera) You know that the critics have called you
and your group, conspirators, the Dominators with a capital "D,"
fanatics. Any, or all of it, true?
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- GARY SCHMITT
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- None. None. It's, very simply.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Off Camera) Why have you've been labeled all of that?
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- GARY SCHMITT
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- Well, I think there's a lot of folks that are unhappy
with the, with the change in the Administration's policy and the American
policy at large. And in the absence of actually addressing the concerns
directly, they'd rather think that it's some sort of conspiracy.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Voice Over) Some critics compare the Project to the
group of men who helped lead America into Vietnam and came to be known
as "the best and the brightest." Kristol dismisses the comparison.
Still, he says, as America seems poised to go to war, there is a degree
of accountability he will feel when the first bomb drops.
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Of course I'll feel some sense of responsibility. The
only point I would also make, though, is one also has to take responsibility,
would also have to take responsibility if one advocated doing nothing and
then if something terrible happens. And, and I worry. I worry, not because
I'm going to look bad, I worry because people could die and will die in
this war.
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- JACKIE JUDD
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- (Off Camera) And after a war, the Project has a vision
beyond a regime change in Iraq. A vision in which the United States government
inserts itself in other failed regimes in the Middle East. So this truly
does become a new American century. This is Jackie Judd for "Nightline,"
in Washington.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) So, we know how the founders of PNAC took
us from where we were to where we are. But where do they plan to take us
next? I'll talk with one of the founders of that group when we come back.
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- graphics: Nightline
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- ANNOUNCER
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- This is ABC News "Nightline", brought to you
by . . .
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- commercial break
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) Joining me now, William Kristol, the chairman
of the Project for the New American Century. Mr. Kristol is also an editor
of the "Weekly Standard Magazine." And the former Chief of Staff
to Vice President Dan Quayle. Bill, if you'll forgive me, I'm a little
less interested with where you've brought us and more interested in where
you theorize that we are going to go. What is it that you're recommending
for the future?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Well, I trust we'll be able to remove Saddam and his
threat of weapons of mass destruction. We need to deal with other dictators
developing weapons of mass destruction. North Korea is a real threat. I
don't think we can allow that to become a nuclear assembly line. And in
the Middle East, I really think we need to reverse over probably 20 years
of bipartisan US foreign policy, which has made a Faustian bargain with
dictators there, and really try to move towards the democratization, liberalization
of the Arab societies of the Middle East. I think the status quo there
has just proved to be too dangerous.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) When you talk about the democratization
of the Middle East, though, first of all, I think you're wise enough to
put it in terms of at least 20 years. But what does that entail in terms
of the continuing presence of US forces in the region?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Well, look, I think when we go into Iraq and after we
remove Saddam, we'll have to stay there for a while. We'll have to remove
the weapons of mass destruction. But I think we owe it to the people of
Iraq to help them reconstitute their society and to help them establish
a decent and, I really hope, democratic government there. That would be
a great, it would be great to help the people of Iraq liberate themselves,
for one thing, they've suffered under such a cruel and brutal dictator.
And it would be a great thing for the Middle East to have a functioning
democratic country right in the middle of that region.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) All those things are undeniably true. But
what does that mean in the terms of the continuing presence of US forces?
I mean, the President famously noted in his State of the Union Address,
a little more than a year ago, that there was an "axis of evil,"
and he mentioned not only North Korea, but also Iran. Should we assume
that part of the, larger vision that you and your colleagues had, or have
to this day, is the, removal, either by force or otherwise, of the current
power structure in Iran?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- I think that would be great. I hope we can do it otherwise.
And I think we can do it otherwise than by force. I think getting, rid
of Saddam would help there. But, no, we will have to leave American troops
in that region, I think in Iraq for quite a while. As we've had to leave
them in Bosnia and Kosovo. As we had to leave them after World War II in
Germany and Japan. It's a good investment. I think it helps keep stability
in the area. And it helps stren gthen the forces of freedom in the area.
So, we shouldn't kid ourselves, though, this is an ambitious American foreign
policy that the President has launched us on, requiring engagement and
involvement in many parts of the world.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) Does it, bother you that it appears that
it is going to be a largely unilateral policy? I don't want to diminish
the influence of our British friends, but this is clearly an American policy.
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- It is. One would always prefer to have more allies rather
than fewer. And I think we actually will have lots of help in the reconstruction
and democratization, actually, of Iraq. But, look, I think what we've learned
over the last ten years is that America has to lead. Other countries won't
act. They will follow us, but they won't do it on their own. And in this
case, I think we'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass
destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) What we've also learned over the past 10
or 12 years is that some of our punitive allies in the region turn out
to be not quite as friendly as we thought, like the Saudis, for example.
And part of the problem has been that we've had a rather significant US
military presence in Saudi Arabia. What makes you and your colleagues believe
that a greater military presence throughout the region won't engender even
more animosity toward the United States and more terrorism?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Well, I think a military presence in a free and democratic
Iraq that is helping the people of Iraq is a lot, is very much preferable
to the military presence in Saudi Arabia, actually. And look, I agree that
one of the things the Bush Administration has not yet done is rethink policy
towards Saudi Arabia, which I think is a necessity. I mean, our policy,
we've had a bipartisan, 60 years of accommodation to the Saudi Royal Family.
And I think we've paid a big price for that. And I think we need to really
rethink our Saudi policy. That's something, that's a bridge the Administration
hasn't crossed yet. I think whoever the next president is, whether it's
President Bush or someone else, our policy towards Saudi Arabia will have
to change.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) Do you think that we will have an adequate
discussion of all that you are talking about here, which really has not
been publicly discussed by the Administration, in the months ahead?
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- WILLIAM KRISTOL
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- Well, I think the President's been pretty bold, actually,
in laying out his doctrine. But, you, sure, I think we will have an adequate
discussion, if only because the critics will insist on it, and should insist
on it. This is a bold and ambitious American foreign policy. I think it's
right for us and right for the world. I think the alternative, if we fail
to do this, is really terrifying and terrible for the world. But I think
this needs to be argued and debated. And I think it will be over the next
year or two.
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- TED KOPPEL
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- (Off Camera) Bill Kristol, many thanks.
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